That the arts and commodities pages both stood empty, showed how truly dispirited the Golsidans really felt. They lacked not only the endurance to make their arts and crafts, but also the energy to make the goods those arts and crafts got made out of.
The Golsidans currently worked just to survive, filling their required two hours of work every day took all of their stamina. They only received a ten percent credit of what their labor produced. The rest got split thirty percent to each parents’ clan. If they worked over their allotted time, their credit jumped to twenty-five percent and the parents’ clans dropped to twenty-five percent. Here on the Satorae clan generation ship, everyone needed to have at least two of their parents belong to Satorae clan or they worked as a contracted laborer. For the percentage it received, Satorae provided its people with all the necessities of life food, shelter, Isadi blood, and healing. Sometimes in trying times like now, the food got rationed. But it always got split up evenly, the only exceptions being the injured who the medics could prescribe extra for.
When Jatlo, Cima, Tawai, Pealo, and Krea stayed over and helped Anna with processing last night, they’d done it on overtime. They personally received a two point five percent credit of the value of what they processed. They could rightfully spend their credit, however they liked, using it to purchase arts, commodities, to contract for; lessons, a labor exchange, or a child bearing contract. But for the last six annuals they received credit and had nothing to buy with it.
Anna could make some of these commodities. Every garden room exited into three processing rooms, each equipped with eight food processors, one supply processor, and a central station. The central station held everything needed to process the commodities; a lot of it with built in computer controlled electronics.
The Golsidans hadn’t been using the central stations for numerous reasons. First, they felt too tired to do the physical labor. Second, the heat the processing generated posed a danger to them in their currently weakened state. They needed to do it on their own time after their day work, which they simply lacked the energy to do. They also needed to pay for the use of the special equipment and to get witnesses to verify what they made. Furthermore, verification required the head of the clan being present. And they only received ten percent of what they made after all the fees and payments got subtracted from the total. All these things added up to just too much for the tired, undernourished Golsidans to tackle.
They wouldn’t stop Anna though. She still needed to use up two hours and sixteen minutes before nap time. Heat posed no problems for her. For a month, she owned the equipment in East 1 through 8 and Midsoutheast 1 through 8. She’d use some of her percentage of the finished goods to pay witness fees. Plus, she felt sure that the Phsatorae would show up with bells on to get something, anything onto the commodities page.
Anna signed off information, grabbed her packs, and ran to East 2 while shrugging them on. Desvren’s lessons had taught her how to process the materials. She knew what to do, thank goodness. The steeping pots for the dyes needed to be filled first. It took fifteen hours for them to steep. If she filled them first, they would be ready to boil tomorrow.
Anna checked and made sure that the electrical field was on and operational. This time she grabbed a remote, stood back from the door, and pushed the button. Open sesame. She almost felt disappointed when no bush fell in.
Anna went straight at the denua vines and fruit, hacking at it vigorously and ruthlessly. She stuffed fruits and vines into her pack with a vengeance. The peelings from the denua fruit made a beautiful red dye, once steeped and boiled down. It took five pounds of peelings for each steeping pot. When her packs, nets, and pockets near overflowed, Anna ran into the processing room and went at the peeling with a passion. She fed the vines and fruit cores into the supply processor. It took three runs before she thought to weigh the peelings. She had fourteen and a half pounds. The next run she filled just her belly pack with denua and everything else with oesla. She got her fifteen pounds of denua peelings and ran it over to the furthest processing room. She filled both the steeping pots there and one of the ones in the center processing room.
Anna ran back and started working on the oesla. Oesla tassels made a very vibrant yellow dye. They too needed to be steeped and boiled down. But luckily, it only took one pound of tassels per pot. Not many tassels existed on the oesla. It took her five runs of just oesla to get the three pounds of tassels she wanted. She put them into the last three steeping pots.
Next, she concentrated on the gesar fruit. The rinds when put into the drying ovens, then pounded, strained, re-dried, and sifted made a fine flour. Luckily, it happened to be a lot easier than it sounded, because the drying ovens had computer controls. Put the rinds in pans, set them in the oven, hit the button for gesar rinds, and wait about eight hours for them to dry. Then, empty the pans into the pounding/straining machine, spread the rough flour back into the pans and return them to the drying ovens. When it came out again it went through the grinder/sifter and then got packaged.
The gesar fruit itself got chopped up and put on to boil. The first boil, when strained made a sweet syrup with a consistency like molasses, a pale yellow color, and a taste reminiscent of oranges. If you set it to boil and strained it again, you ended up with a glue of medium strength. A third boil and straining produced the super glue that held even in vacuum.
Anna peeled gesar, threw the rinds into drying pans, chopped the fruit into eight pieces and dropped them into the sixty liter boiling pots. Each boiling pot was computer operated with an automatic stirring arm that lowered down into it. A chute fed into the pot which actually hid out of sight under the counter. It took just under a run for each pot. The overripe fruit she put directly into the processor, except for about five pounds that she saved for mewu bait. In twelve runs she filled all the big pots and drying ovens. It took quite a lot of time to peel gesar. Only a half hour remained when she finished it.
Anna managed four runs of catronu which filled two of the mechanical presses. Then she took the overripe fruit to East 1, set it out in ten piles, and ran to Des’s cabin to shower and change.
The clock showed the time to be seventy-three after four when Anna got home before Des. She ate, set the alarm, and fell sound asleep in just a few minutes. She woke up before the alarm went off, curled up beside Des. She minded him only to find him exhausted again. What have you been doing? She gently asked. Working in the metal section his mind told her which informed her of nothing, because she didn’t know anything about the metal section yet. Well eventually, she’d learn about that too.
Anna got up, shut off the alarm, and set some food out for Des. She trotted off to East 2. She had a little over two human hours before her knife throwing lesson started. She spent the time processing more harvest to put onto the commodities page.
When only seven minutes remained, Anna put the boxes, extra nets, and targets in her pack. She ran for Northwest 3. She wondered if things would ever slow down. She took off her packs and sat down leaning against the wall. She thought it through. Right now, things felt hectic because so many things required experimentation and research like the packs and traps. They needed to be figured out the hard way. The packs and traps absorbed a sizable chunk of time today to finish the first and design the latter. If she managed to harvest lysordi branches tonight, she’d fill the central station plastic processors. If she went over the rail, she planned to grab as much greal and korftu nuts as possible.
Anna shuddered at the thought of jumping rail. But she had to admit it lingered on her mind. The vitamins she’d brought wouldn’t last for long, not with the whole ship’s crew requiring them. Greal and korftu contained the majority of the vitamins and minerals essential to the Golsidans health, especially the unripe greal. They desperately needed it. The only way to harvest it involved going over the rail, to harvest the hanging vines on the trees of the central garden. If she stayed within easy leaping distance of the rail, it should be fairly safe. Anna chuckled to h
erself.
Her ideas and thoughts on numerous things had changed vastly in the last couple of days; evidently her idea of fairly safe had modified drastically. To harvest in a center garden with an overpopulation of large takosund existed in a realm beyond what most humans called extremely dangerous, beyond even radical sport dangerous. It compared best to jumping into the lion’s open-air enclosure at the zoo to pick berries. Hope they don’t notice you, because if they do, uh-oh....
The only sport Anna ever participated in as a human was river and lake kayaking, a calming, solitary, form of exercise. Definitely nothing close to playing chicken with lions or hide and seek with takosunds.
Anna smiled; she was changing as a person, becoming more adventurous. After all, she was living the adventure of a lifetime and thoroughly enjoying it.
As for the commodities, well, she’d made a good start on them. Tomorrow, she’d get more of them finished. While she disliked cooking even in a kitchen as sophisticated as the processing rooms, she needed to do it. Catronu oil basically equaled vegetable oil. Gesar syrup held enough natural sugars and calories to be considered liquid candy.
All of the Golsidans qualified as malnourished. Food fried in oil or roasted in syrup contained everything they needed to gain weight. The raw fruits and vegetables from the garden kept them from falling into worse shape. But, right now, they really needed fattening food and vitamins. Anna just happened to be the only one on the ship capable of enduring working in a hot kitchen. She needed to stick with it until the Golsidans gained back their full health. Once enough catronu oil and gesar syrup got made, she’d start frying and roasting savti on a large scale. The batches going now only counted as a small start. The more the Golsidans ate, the better. As long as she took it day by day, she could easily cope with kitchen work.
“You look as if you lack the strength required to throw steel, let alone harvest. Are you ill?” Sato leaned over Anna.
“No. I’m fine. I just got a little discouraged and needed to think things through. There seems to be so much to do that I feel like I may never finish it all.”
“Discouraged, you should be inspired. Yesterday’s harvest ended up being four hundred and seventy-eight percent of what it normally is. Plus, whatever amount you harvested. How much did you process of your own harvest?”
Anna shrugged. “I didn’t bother to keep track. I just wanted to get it done.”
Sato looked shocked. “You don’t know? Come with me, Phwolfe.” Anna followed Sato as he went over to the information panel. “Everything that goes through the processors gets accounted for by the computers with relative percentages automatically credited to the clans. It all exists as available information updated every fifteen minutes. Let’s look at Wolfe clan’s percentages.”
Sato stared at the screen. “Hmm... The oldest Wolfe entry happened only four days ago. Why is that?” Sato asked.
“Wow! I’ve only been here for four days it seems like a lot longer than that.” Time or in this case the lack thereof put everything in a different perspective. Of course everything still felt hectic. The dust hadn’t even settled yet.
“Well four days ago, you made your first Wolfe entry in supply. Yesterday warm, you made your first harvest entry. You harvested in the warm and worked as pack-runner that same cool?” He looked at Anna in shock, and sighed when she nodded. “Your first harvest took place in East 1 and your numbers totaled to...”
He jumped out of the chair and spun on Anna. He pointed at the screen, and then at her. His mouth moved but nothing came out. Finally, he sat back down, coughed, stared at the screen, and coughed again. “It takes my crew of twenty-eight three days to harvest what you picked in one. And after that you worked as the pack-runner in the cool. Let’s see what you accomplished today. You researched quite a bit of information this warm and you processed over what my crew harvests in a day. You ordered a belly pack, nets, and boxes from supply. You spent over two hours on the central station of East 2. What are you making? Please, tell me.” He looked as eager as a child.
“So far, I’ve got four pots of oesla dye and seven pots of denua dye steeping. I filled the fryers with catronu oil and savti and the roasters with savti covered in gesar syrup. I finished thirty-four bottles of gesar syrup and six of first boil glue, loaded the presses with catronu, and the dryers with gesar rinds. The second boil glue needs to finish boiling down. Basically, I have forty bottles full and a lot of half-finished stuff.”
“But all of it except the flour and dyes will be finished by tomorrow cool. Do you need a witness? I volunteer my only price two pounds of roasted savti and a bottle of gesar syrup.”
“Deal. Also, I’ll owe you for my lesson, name your price.”
“A pound of fried savti, one bottle of catronu oil, and one bottle of first boil glue.” He looked hopeful.
“I agree to that. If I line up the other witnesses in time, I want to get the Phsatorae to come verify tomorrow cool before the harvest. I’m going to have dyes finished in a couple of warms and I thought about trading Jatlo and Cima some for the witnessing. Does that sound like a good idea to you?”
“Yes, very good. Let’s go throw steel. Did you bring your targets?”
Anna nodded towards her pack. She picked it up and followed Sato out into the garden room. She pulled out the targets and set them on the ground.
“First, why do you wish to throw steel?” Sato asked.
“Takosund!” Sato just looked at her blankly. Anna put her pack on and buckled it up as she explained. “Sooner or later, I need to hunt takosund and therefore I need to learn how to throw steel and throw it well. I also need to make a crossbow and bolts and practice with them too. First comes steel though, because we have the knives.”
“You want to hunt takosund?” Sato nearly shouted.
“Not really, I wish to never see takosund. But, they need to be hunted. The people need protein, leka, and a dozen things that exist out in that jungle garden. No one can safely harvest any of it, because of the danger of takosund, so hunting them becomes necessary. Right now, I’m the most well-nourished, strongest and fastest person on this ship. That means I should hunt takosund.”
“You are right. Takosund keeps us away from what we need to harvest. I often look over the railing of second level. I stare at that greal and korftu just dangling there. All those vitamins in the form we absorb so well and they hang out of my reach.” He shook his head sadly.
“Chief Sato, what would you do if someone went over the railing?” Anna asked in a quiet voice.
“The railing stands too high for anyone to fall over. It rises up two meters tall and the shelf top measures over a meter wide.” Sato said as he pulled out a knife and threw it into the center of the smallest target.
“Not a fall over the railing, but a planned jump over to harvest. To grab what hangs in reach and come back with it.”
Sato whirled to face Anna, another knife in his hand. He pointed at her. “You?”
Anna nodded and smiled at his dumbfound expression. He towered over her, pointing a knife at her, and he wore the expression of a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding car.
Sato smiled. “You could accomplish it with me watching for you, which I want to do.”
Anna nodded, pulled a knife, threw it at the large target and missed. “Tonight, I volunteer for pack-runner again at ten percent. But tonight, I ask that everyone fill three bags before they call. In the gaps between the calls, I’ll go over the rail to harvest greal, korftu, and lysordi branches.”
“Why lysordi branches?”
“Commodities ran out of plastic. Supply barely has any and more needs to be made. That means we need lysordi branches to feed into the plastic processors.”
“Small lysordi branches grow through the rail onto second level, a lot of them. I offer a trade. I harvest lysordi branches. I tie them in bundles twice the size of the big target and one and a half to two meters long. I trade you a bundle for a pound of ripe greal or korftu, or a b
undle for half a pound of unripe greal.”
“Agreed, another deal.” Anna nodded. “Do you know how many people live on this ship, Sato?” She pulled another knife, aimed at the target, threw and missed again.
“Three hundred and fifty-seven people reside onboard. An invalid list of one hundred and sixty-three stays in medical/healer central. Twenty-nine more work on a restricted basis. Only one hundred and sixty-five can still work two hours each day. Golsidans, when strong, work like you in both the warm and the cool. Traditionally, we work four hours a day. But now, we lack the strength.”
“Des never mentioned an invalid or restricted list.” Anna tried another knife and missed again.
“The medics keep invalid and restricted lists of people too weak to work two hours a day. Restricted people can work some, but not often, invalids not at all. Tonight Marfi works with us. They only allow her to come in once or twice a week. I put her on a processor, but she can only handle a third of what the others get.”
“Are any of them as bad off as Yerly and Kimbo?” Anna knew Des wouldn’t outright lie to her. But, he might try to protect her from things out of her control.
Sato shook his head. “No one fares as badly as Yerly and Kimbo.” Sato watched Anna throw a knife and only miss by about half a meter this time. She was improving. Sato shook his head. “Please take no offense. But, I think I need to mind to mind you.” He reached out, grasped her shoulder, and pushed into her mind. He reached deep down and pushed her aside.
Anna fought. In her mind, a wolf jumped at Sato with its teeth bared. Sato put out his hands. Friend, I show you. Down there, go deep down there. The wolf stopped and stared at Sato. You need to go deep down. Sato reached one hand out to the wolf and pointed down.
Phwolfe Song (Golsidan Revival Series Book 1) Page 8